SPEECH OF HON. JAMES BROOKS, 

OF NEW YORK, 

ON THE DEFICIENCY BILL. 



: House of Representatives . March 20, 1852, in 
Ihe Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union 
on the Deficiency Bill— Mr, Venable, of North 
Carolina, in the chair. 

Mr. BROOKS said: 

Mr. Chairman: I had hoped that when this De- 
ficiency bill came up, there would be a free, open, 
and legitimate discussion upon its merits. I had 
hoped that the honorable chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Ways and Means would have availed 
himself of his right, under the rules, to address 
the committee for one hour, and that he would 
have given his exposition of the bill, so that some 
cue or clue could have been given to the discussion, 
and so that I might seem to be addressing myself 
in reply to something which might have been said 
upon this floor, rather than to things which, if not 
said here, are said elsewhere. But he was not able 
to avail himself of that privilege, and, therefore, I 
am placed in the somewhat embarrassingr position 
of vindicating a bill which has not as yet been at- 
tacked upon the floor of this House, except by the 
incidental remarks of the honorable gentleman 
from Missouri, (Mr. Hall,) or some like inci- 
dental remarks, the other day, from an honorable 
gentleman from Tennessee. 

EXECUTIVE ESTI31ATES AND CONGRESSIONAL RE- 
SPONSIBILITY. 

I propose, in the first place, to ask the attention 
of the House to the estimates of this Administra- 
tion, and the necessities of the country that de- 
manded them. It ha3 been remarked, and truly, 
too, that the Administration is bound to make its 
estimates, and is responsible for them; but the 
House of Representatives i3 not less bound to vote 
those estimates, if they are founded upon a cor- 
rect judgment of the necessities of the country, and 
that in voting them it endorses them, and is equal- 
ly responsible, with the Administration, for them. 
This I say, frankly and freely, and I would have 
no misunderstanding about it. It will not do to 
say, "We must take and vote the estimates, and 
hold the Administration alone responsible for them. 
We can know nothing about them." It will not 
do, under our form of government, thus to make 
the legislative the mere register of the edicts of the 
Executive branch of the Government. It is our 
business, our duty, to study, to understand, to com- 
prehend, the necessities of the country, as set forth 
in the estimates; to vote for them if they are right, 
and to refuse them if they are wrong. We are 
men, and we can as well understand them as the 
men who send them here. This is the constitu- 
tional theory of the appropriating power of this 
Government. To the Executive belongs the ex- 
ecution of the laws, but to Congress belongs the 
public purse. If Congress declines to make ap- 
propriations necessary to carry on the Govern- 
ment economically, and in good faith, it fails in 
one of its highest duties; and the Executive, if it 
has made its statements and its recommendations, 
ia acquitted of all responsibility. It is well that 
we who are in a large minority here, with the re- 
sponsibility of an Executive elsewhere, should 
have an understanding about this with the major- 
ity and at the start. Let there be no disguise about 
these things, then. 

Gideon & Co., Prints. 



The purse, then, being in the hands of Congress, 
not a dollar can be taken from the treasury by the 
President except by the appropriation of the two 
Houses of Congress; and whatever appropriations 
are voted by Congress, Congress thus becomes re- 
sponsible for and sanctions them. Congress has 
peculiar advantages over the Administration in 
voting upun its estimates, for under our peculiar 
financial system the fiscal year commences with 
the 1st of July, and Congress acts upon estimates 
often some months after the Executive submits 
them. For example, the estimates upon which we 
shall be called to act when the Civil and Diplomatic 
Appropriation bill comes up for consideration are 
for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1S52, and 
ending with June 30, 1853, and were made, in 
part, by the War Department, in September or 
October last, and sent to the Executive in Novem- 
ber last, being one year and seven, eight, or nine 
months ahead of their final expenditure, June 30, 
1853. The Executive must have his estimates 
printed, and on our tables the very day we meet in 
December — estimates upon which we shall not pro- 
bably act before July or August next. It is the 
duty of Congress, and it is its peculiar privilege, 
ixiontb.3 after they are submitted, to scan these es- 
timates, and to judge of them by the experience of 
a later period ; but when Congress has adopted 
them Congress becomes responsible for them, as 
well as the Executive. Frankness and fair dealing 
demanded of me to say thus much here before we 
go further into the vote; and what I have said I 
hold to be true and legitimate doctrine. 

WHAT ARE ESTIMATES. 

Now, what are estimates? They are nothing 
but guesses at best. They are the .judgment of 
men, founded upon the past history of this Gov- 
ernment, and upon its past expenditure; of what is 
to happen hereafter, and what is to be the cost of 
it. Upon this past history, presuming the future 
will be as the past has been, they make their esti- 
mates of the future expenditure of the Government 
a year and seven or eight months before all those 
expenditures are to occur. Now, we stand on van- 
tage ground some months ahead of the Executive 
in this matter. We know what the expenses of 
the Government have been since the time the esti- 
mates were made, or, at least, we can know if we 
desire. It is impossible for any Executive, unless 
he be gifted with extraordinary wisdom or some 
foresight divine, to know a year and seven months 
ahead what are to be all the actual expenses of the 
Government. If an Indian war arises, if trouble 
happens upon some distant ocean, if frontier diffi- 
culties are created, if there be any extraordinary 
increase of the cost of collecting revenue, or if there 
beany domestic troubles, His impossible for the Ex- 
ecutive to know what should be the exact estimates 
for the expenses of the Governmenfa year and 
seven months ahead, or even for Congress to know, 
when, at a later period, it i3 making its appropria- 
tions. So that, under our peculiar financial sys- 
tem, there must always be deficiencies in some 
branches of expenditure, and surpluses in others, 
as there always have been deficiencies and sur- 
pluses, since this fiscal year has been substituted 
for the year of the calendar. 



2 






DEFICIENCY BILLS NO NOVELTIES. 

I have heard gentlemen speak of this Deficiency 
bill, which has appeared in this House, as of some- 
thing new — unknown in Congress before, and as if 
belonging peculiarly to this Administration. If this 
idea has taken possession of the mind3 of any new 
member, he must be a new member indeed. From 
the time when the present financial system was 
established down to the present, these deficiency 
bills have appeared on the stage every year, and 
they will coniinue to appear hereafter, as long as 
the Government exists, or the fiscal year exists as 
it is now. I hold in my hand a tabular statement 
from the year 1944, exhibiting large deficiencies 
every year, under the administration of Mr. Polk, 
and I shall read it in part: 

Additional estimates rendered by the Secretary of the 
Treasury, in connexion with the regular estimates 
at the commencement of the sessions of Congress. 

For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1344, (Mr. 

Spencer, Secretary:) 
Civil, miscellaneous, and foreign 

intercourse $13S,571 49 

Military department 150,441 47 



$-289,012 96 

Congress appropriated 211,270 82 

For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1845, (Mr. 

Bibb, Secretary:) 
Civil, miscellaneous, and foreign 

intercourse $ 176,203 63 

Military department 316,765 15 

$492,968 78 

Congress appropriated 443,864 05 

For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1346, (Mr. 

Walker, Secretary:) 
Civil, miscellaneous, and foreiern 

intercourse $1,009,764 21 

Military department 280,762 34 



$1,290,526 55 

Congress appropriated 1,700,914 99 

For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1847, (Mr. 
Walker, Secretary:) 
Civil, miscellaneous, and foreign 

intercourse $666,700 72 

Military department. . 4,793,000 00 ■ 

$5,459,700 72 

Congress appropriated 7,637,071 48 

. For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1848, (Mr. 

Walker, Secretary:) 

Civil, miscellaneous, and foreign 

intercourse $88,723 S3 

Military department. . 9,902,439 74 

Navy department 70,681 SO 

$10,061,844 57 

Congress appropriated 13,315,666 88 

For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1849, (Mr. 
Walker, Secretary:) 

Civil, miscellaneous, and foreign intercourse, in- 
cluding Mexican indemnity $3,744,903 69 

Congress appropriated 3,885,193 81 

I especially beg the attention of gentlemen on 
the other side to the deficiencies of 1847 and 1848, 
as in the last year a Whig Congress (Mr. Vin- 
ton chairman of the Ways and Means) made up 
for the deficiencies of Mr. Polk to the amount of 
over $13,800,000. 

Mr. Jones, of Tennessee. I desire to ask the 
gentleman from New York if that was not duriDg 
the Mexican war, when we had fifty thousand 
troops in the field? 

Mr. Brooks. Yes; but Congress, in declaring 
war with Mexico, authorized the raising of the 
troops, and provided the means of carrying it on; 
and it was the duty of the Executive to submit 
those estimates. 



_ Now, it is very true that this was during the 
time of the Mexican war, and it was very proba- 
ble that there would be deficiencies, doubtless 
larger deficiencies than would otherwise have been 
necessary ; but it is also true that on the 13th of 
May, 1846, when the President was authorized to 
call into service the fifty thousand volunteers, he 
could, in the December following, have included 
in his estimates for the year ending June, 1848, the 
cost of maintaining them. It was the power of the 
Administration— the country then being involved 
in war— to face that war, and to estimate for enough 
to carry it on. It knew that, in order to conquer 
Mexico, it had to involve the country in a prodi- 
gious expenditure, and to bring in the field all the 
troops Congress authorized in May, 1846, and it 
was its duty, in submitting the estimates in De- 
cember, 1846, for the year ending June, 1848, to 
fully, fairly, and fearlessly estimate what the cost 
of that job would be, certainly, just as much as it 
is the duty of this Administration now, a year 
and seven months ahead, to know what will be 
all, and the exact, expenditures of the Govern- 
ment in the now much larger fields of Oregon and 
California. 

ESTIMATES DURING THE MEXICAN WAR. 

But now the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Jones) has chosen to introduce this justification of 
the Mexican war as a defence of erroneous esti- 
mates; I propose to follow him there — not to at- 
tack, but to demonstrate that the leading minds 
and leading men of his party are as fallible as 
other mortals in their guesses or estimates. I did 
not intend to introduce some facts which I have 
before me at all, but it now becomes proper to 
show, if war justifies larger deficiency bills than 
peace, or larger errors in estimates, the gentleman 
from Tennessee is well justified in interrupting 
me. 

Mr. Polk, in his annual message, and Mr. 
Walker, in hi3 Treasury report, December, 1846, 
stated that if the Mexican war continued to July 
1, 1849, a loan of $23,000,000 would be needed 
to carry the Government forward, and that that 
would leave a surplus of $4,000,000 in the trea- 
sury. But Mr. Walker, in his report of Decem- 
ber, 1847, asked — notwithstanding this surplus of 
$4,000,000 that was to be in the treasury— a loan 
of $ IS, 500,000 additional, to meet the expenses of 
the Government the same year. The Ways and 
Means Committee reported his loan bill as asked 
for— that is, for $18,500,00. This Mr. Walker, 
the Secretary of the treasury then, gladdened the 
country with a letter to Congress, stating that he 
had made the fortunate discovery of an error, show- 
ing the treasury to have nearly seven millions of 
dollars more than stated in his annual report. The 
Committee of Ways and Means then reduced that 
loan of $18,500,000 to $12,000,000, to carry out 
that fortunate discovery. But, before the country 
was gladdened fully with this most satisfactory 
announcement, a3 early as January, 1848, the' 
Secretary of the Treasury sent to the House an- 
other statement, saying that, when the first letter 
wa3 sent in, he did not know that Mr. Marcy had 
called upon the Committee *of Ways and Means 
for $4,000,000, to supply a deficiency, which was 
necessary in his (the War) Department, and there- 
fore that the sixteen million loan would be neces- 
sary. This sum the Committee of Ways and 
Means reported, and Congress acted accordingly. 
Now, I do not mean to censure Mr. Walker, or Mr. 
Polk's administration, for this wild guessing, this 
blundering by millions, unless it be intended to 
convey the idea that they had the power of foresee- 
ing all the actual expenditures of the war, exactly 



i 



what it would cost the country, and that it was 
their duty, therefore, to make estimates that would 
not admit of any possible deficiency; but I do 
mean to say, that no administration, throughout 
our whole history, has ever exhibited such a want 
of apprehension of its own means as that did — mil- 
lions at a time — or such a want of comprehension 
of the great task it had undertaken, in conquer- 
ing' peace with Mexico. At one time it blundered 
upon seven millions of hitherto undiscovered trea- 
sure, but at another time the cruel Secretary of 
War had robbed it of four millions of its precious 
means and receipts. The war, it is clear, or rather 
the cost of it, had utterly bewildered Mr. Polk, 
Mr. Walker, Mr. Marcy, and all who, in Wash- 
ington, had been carrying it on. 

Equally erroneous were the estimates of Mr. 
Polk's administration for the expenditures for the 
fiscal year ending July 1, 1S4S. The Govern- 
ment set them down to be §45,781,784; but in 
only the first seven months of that fiscal year the 
estimates were changed and run up to §62,733,- 
669. The Secretary of War then estimated his ex- 
penses for the fiscal year at §23,938,000. but in 
the session of 1847 and 1S43 he asked for an addi- 
tional expenditure of over .'314,033,434 — an addi- 
tion of more than the yearly expenses of the Gov- 
ernment during John Quincy Adams's adminis- 
tration! 

I repeat that I do not intend to censure Mr. Polk, 
Mr. Walker, or Mr. Marcy; but I do intend to say, 
that if gentlemen suppose that this Administra- 
tion can calculate or estimate better than did the 
last, they require more of us than they did them- 
selves; and they pay us a compliment we ought to 
thank them for. 

The Quartermaster General, Jesup, submitted 
to Mr. Marcy a statement of his deficiencies, upon 
the 4th of November, 1847, and there were then 
arrearages in his department, for which he esti- 
mated §7,500,000; and for clothing, camp and 
garrison equipage, §960,000 more; making in all 
nearly §8,460,000 — a sum necessary for him a3 a 
deficiency. He estimated the expenditure for the 
next fiscal year, for his own, the quartermaster's 
department, to be over §19,291,200. This defi- 
ciency and this estimate were taken to Mr. Polk. 
He was frightened by the magnitude of them; and 
it i3 within the history of the Committee of Ways 
and Means — not the present committee — that Mr. 
Polk compelled General Jesup to cut down his ar- 
rearages from §7,500,000 to §5 000,000, and his 
•clothing and camp equipage from §960,000 to 
§600,000; so that, instead of §8,460,000, only 
§5,600,000 were given ; and the estimate of the 
■quartermaster general for the year was cut down 
to §14,250,000. But on the 3d of February, soon 
afterwards — for these estimates were sent in De- 
cember — Mr. Marcy writes to the Committee of 
Ways and Means that he wants, and must have, 
§360,000 for the clothing department, which 
brought back the sum necessary, then, to General 
Jesup's original estimate, §960,000. Now, I state 
■these great facts in no carping spirit, nor with any 
love for crimination or recrimination, but to show 
Jhat deficiencies must exist, as they have existed 
under an administration peculiarly beloved by the 
party now dominant in both Houses of Congress, 
and to ask that party to bear in mind that they 
always will exist unless the high officers of the 
Government are gifted with omnipresence, om- 
niscience, and omnipotence, to control all the ele- 
ments, and all the circumstances of war and of 
peace. 

DEFICIENCIES IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

But, Mr. Chairman, are our deficiences alone 
confined to the executive officers of the Govern- 
ment? I have in my hand now a letter from the 



Cierk of this House, directed to the Committee of 
Ways and Means, in which he asks for §100,000 
deficiency ic the estimates of the expenditures of 
this House, §75,000 of which are in the Deficiency 
bill which you now have under consideration. And 
if the House itself cannot judge of its own expen- 
ditures, does not know its own means, or spends 
more than it has C3timateded, let us not hear one 
word from this House, or the majority in it, against 
another branch of the Government, which can 
spend not a cent but as it is appropriated. I will 
read the letter : 

"House of Representatives, Jan. 15, 1852. 

"Sir: At the last session of Congress the sum of 
§209,971 was appropriated to meet the contingent 
expenses of the House of Representatives for the 
present fiscal year. Prior to the meeting of Con- 
gress there had been expended the sum of §144,- 
500, and since that time there has been expended 
the sura of §33,320, leaving an unexpended bal- 
ance of §32,250 to meet the contingent expenses 
of the House for the remainder of the fiscal year, 
ending the 30th day of June next. 

"It has been reported to this office that the sum 
of §50,000 will be required to meet the expenses of 
printing alone; and I would, therefore, respect- 
fully recommend that the sum of §100,000 be pro- 
vided in the Deficiency bill to meet-the contingent 
expenses of the House. 

"I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
"JNO. W. FORNEY. 
"Hon. George S. Houston, 

"Chairman Committee of Ways and Means." 

MILITARY EXPENDITURES. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I come to the expenses of 
the quartermaster's department, for which there 
are large appropriations in the Deficiency bill; but 
at the threshold I beg the House to remember, that 
every cent of deficiency here comes from cutting 
down the estimates last year §2,315,000, for the 
pruning knife cut in there deep the last session 
of the last Congress, "in the dark, it was ad- 
mitted in debate ! Indeed, there is no de- 
ficiency in the quartermaster's department this 
year, save as it arises from the cutting down of his 
estimates last year, without rhyme or reason, as 
we see now. It is almost impossible, I will remark 
here, to comprehend the expenditures of this de- 
partment, unless we are willing to give them a 
fair and full consideration. I must confess that, 
when the quartermaster general's estimates were 
submitted to the Committee of Ways and Means at 
the last Congress, of which committee I was, a3 now, 
a member, their magnitude struck my attention, 
and almost affrighted me. I could not comprehend 
them, and I sympathized, for the time being, with 
the indignant remarks which I heard from gentle- 
men upon all sides of the House respecting them. 
But this state of feeling arose from a want of pro- 
per study of the whole subject upon my part. I 
did not comprehend the growth and grandeur of 
this country. I did not appreciate the mighty 
fact, that since 1S45, the time from which these ex- 
penditures had so much increased, that these Uni- 
ted States have been more than doubled in their 
area and extent ; and that whereas, before the 
Mexican war, we may be said to have had but one 
United States, one Republic; we have now, as it 
were, two United States, two Republics, and have 
added to us a territory twice as large a3 the old 
United States of America were in 1845. 

FRONTIERS TO BE DEFENDED. 

I hold in my hand a computation table of the 
area of the States, Territories, organized and un- 
organized, in the United States, which show3 some 
interesting and important facts: 



Area 
in sq. miles. 
Twenty-nine old States, (excludingTex- 

as and California) - 1,073,930 

NEW TERRITORIES. 

California and New Mexico 526,078 

Texas 325,520 

Oregon — ...... 341,463 

1,193,061 

Northwest Territory, west of the Missis- 
sippi, including Minnesota, and bound- 
ed south by Iowa and the Platte river, 
• and west by the Rocky mountains. . . . 745,5S4 
Indian Territory, west of Missouri and 

Arkansas, and south of Platte river. . 248,851 

Number ofsq. miles in the United States 3,261,426 
Showing these two new States, New Mexico and 
Oregon, only to have an area in square miles of 
119,131 more than the twenty-nine old States of the 
Republic ! 

Thus we have, since 1845, more than doubled the 
area of territory that our army has to defend and 
protect, and doubled it, too, amongsavagcs, dwell- 
ing in wildernesses, or on mountains, and in fast- 
nesses almost inaccessible to our troops. Now, 
under such a state of things, it i3 to be expected 
that in nearly all branches of this Government, as 
the country increases, its expenditures will increase 
in proportion to its territory — certainly its army 
expenditures in proportion to its territory, and 
more too — for that very increase of territory in- 
creases its difficulties and duties, and aggravates 
its outlays. And this, in part, is the great secret 
of the enormous expenditure in the quartermaster's 
department. The military posts in the United 
States in 1S45 were only seventy-eight, the west- 
ernmost of which was Fort Washita, on the Red 
river; but in 1852 there are one hundred and eigh- 
teen military posts and arsenals. The following is 
the length of our frontier, in part, the Mexican 
frontier having to be protected under the treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo: 

Length of Mexican frontier 1,700 miles. 

Length of Atlantic and Gulf of Mex- 
ico ...3,500 " 

Length of Pacific seacoast 1,620 " 

One of the most forcible arguments which Gen- 
eral Jesup has made to this House, in his report, to 
show the necessary magnitude of his expenditures, 
is the colored map, which he has appended to the 
quartermaster's report, by which he not only 
shows the overland transportation his horses, 
mules, and wagons have to perform, but also that 
there are now four or six frontiers to the United 
States, whereas before there were only two or 
three. There is the frontier of the Pacific, then 
the Mexican and Oregon frontier, the inner fron- 
tier, this side of the Sierra Madre mountains, and 
the frontier beyond Missouri, full of savages and 
wild Indians; so that I may say, I think, without 
exaggeration, that, as exalted as the Roman empire 
was in its proudest day, far and wide as the im- 
perial eagle went, and momentous and aggrandiz- 
ing as were its achievements, equally alike diffi- 
culties, savages ten times more ferocious than Gaul 
or Briton, are now met by the soldiers and officers 
of this country, in the wide extent of posts which 
they have, extending from the Aroostook, in Maine, 
to Fort Wilkin, on Lake Superior, to Puget's 
Sound, in Oregon, and from the Rio Grande to the 
sources of the Red river, in Arkansas. It is neces- 
sary to comprehend this mighty fact of territorial 
extension in order to understand this great expen- 
diture of the quartermaster's department. It is 
neeessary to remember that the military posts are 
nearly doubled; that the territory has more than 
doubled; and also the other most essential fact, that 



in 1845 almost all the quartermaster's posts were 
accessible by steamboats, the one furthest oft 
(Fort Scott) being within ninety miles from steam- 
boat navigation, and that, too, in a region where 
supplies could be obtained in its neighborhood. 
Fort Washita, in the Chickasaw country, near the 
Red river, was the only outpost depending upon 
the interior for its supplies, and it was only eighty- 
six miles from the depot where it was supplied. 
Pack and wagon have now to go hundreds and 
hundreds of miles. Supplies in some places have 
to go over a thousand miles by land. There is not 
in Oregon, Nqjw Mexico, Utah, California, or in 
the yet unsettled parts of Texas, even an ordinary 
turnpike road. 

The cost of transportation from the depots on. 
the Gulf of Mexico to the ports in New Mexico, 
has been tested to be $'22 a hundred for the sup- 
plies actually delivered in a sound state. No gen- 
tleman can have a proper idea of the magnitude of 
that quartermaster's department, unless he wiil 
carefully look over the reports of sub-officers, ap- 
pended to the quartermaster's report. The prodi- 
gious operations ot the quartermaster's department 
may be illustrated at the post of San Antonio, 
Texas, alone, and from this movement in Texas, 
the movements from Fort Leavenworth westward, 
may be guessed at also: 

Statement showing the operations of the Quartermas- 
ter's Department at San Antonio, Texas, during 
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1851, under the di- 
rection of Brevet Major E. B. Babbitt, Assistant 
Quartermaster United States Army. 
Sent from this post during the year. .9S ox wagons. 
Sent from this post during the year. 752 mule " 

Total 850 

of which 752 were Government mule wagons, and 
98 contractors' ox wagons. 

With the Government wagons were sent 59 prin- 
cipal teamsters and 780 teamsters. 

The Government wagons were employed in 
transporting company and officers' baggage, sub- 
sistence, quartermasters', medical, ordnance, and 
other stores to the different military posts. 

The contractors' wagons were employod in 
transporting public supplies (chiefly forage) to the 
different military posts. ~~l,*- 

By the contractors' wagons were forwarded 
69,900 pounds of subsistence stores, 185,000 pounds 
of quartermasters' stores, and 185 pounds of ord- 
nance stores. 

By the Government wagons were forwarded 
about 170,700 pounds of baggage, 1,260,000 pounds 
of subsistence stores, 349,557 pounds of quarter- 
masters' stores, 28,000 pounds of medical stores, 
and 122,650 pounds of ordnance stores. 

Total number of pounds transported by wagons 
from this post, 2,185,992. 

For this transportation were employed 946 men, 
4,720 mules, 622 oxen, and 73 horses. 

E. B. BABBITT, 
Brevet Major and Assistant Quartermaster. 

Assistant Quartermaster's Office, 
San Antonio, Texas, June 30, 1851. 

Now, looking at all these facts, I take pleasure 
in saying that, though I was affrighted at first by 
the quartermaster general's estimates, I do be- 
lieve, and I say it, though that gentleman is oppo- 
sed to me in politics, that Major General Jesup 
has discharged a most trying and difficult duty 
with great fidelity to the Government, with as 
careful a regard for the public interest as he would 
have done, or could have done, if he had been 
transacting, on a scale so large, his own private 
business, and that it has been the most embarrass- 



ing, annoying 1 , and trying duty ever imposed upon 
a quartermaster, at any time, or in any period, 
since the extension of the Roman government 
through the regions of Gaul and Briton, and over 
the Bosphorusof the East. 

MILITARY POSTS AND INDIANS. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I propose to show the ne- 
cessity for some of these posts which have been es- 
tablished. I first come to the State of Texas, where 
no small portion of our little army i3 stationed, 
and I propose to show that there is a necessity for 
the stationing of these forces there. The number of 
Indians stated to be in Texas, by our official and 
unofficial reports, much vary. The Camanches in 
some quarters are stated to be twenty thousand in 
number. The Lipans are estimated at five hun- 
dred. There are Wacoes, Keechies, Caddoes, An- 
da:"co3, Ionies, Shawanees, and other unnamed 
tribes. There are fierce and wild tribes, I am 
told, not even reported by our Indian Depart- 
ment, or not yet discovered by our Indian agents. 
The Indians in Texa3, I am authorized to say by 
the honorable member from eastern Texas, (Mr. 
Scuhry,) who has been much in the Indian coun. 
try, number, in the lowest estimate, twenty thou- 
sand, and they are Indians of a warlike and fe- 
rocious character. Our Indian relations with 
Texa3 are fearfully embarrassed by the fact that 
we have no land there " to reserve" for them, 
and that the Texan surveyors and chain-bearers 
march upon Indian territory, and take it without 
purchase or treaty. This brings the settlements 
of Texas into constant collision with the Indian 
tribes. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo imposes 
upon us the onerous, dangerous, and trying duty 
of not only protecting our own settlements from 
Indian invasion, but of protecting the Mexican 
frontier also, seventeen hundred miles long; and 
the expense of that is enormous. Besides this, 
upon the recommendation of the Governor of 
Texa3, to be found in documents too long for me 
to read now, posts have been stationed from the 
Red river, about where it is crossed by the thirty - 
fourth parallel of latitude, along to El Paso— a 
distance of six or seven hundred miles — posts in 
the utter wilderness, and upon the prairie, and 
posts along the Rio Grande — eight or nine hundred 
miles more— making a frontier, in Texas alone, to 
be protected from the Indians, of fourteen or fif- 
teen hundred miles. But, sir, besides— under the 
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo— beinsr pledged to 
protect the Mexicans from nomadic Indians, there 
is also imposed upon this Government the yet 
higher duty of guarding the frontier of Mexico 
from Texan invasions. The scenes which have 
been lately transacted upon the Rio Grande — the 
filibuster scenes— have been a disgrace to thi3 
Government— not a disgrace to the Executive 
branch of this Government, but a disgrace to the 
Government that has not provided the Executive 
with sufficient means to guard that frontier 
from American invasion. We have stipu- 
lated, by the highest obligations, under the most 
solemn sanction, the preservation of the Mexican 
frontier from American invasion, and yet constant- 
ly there have been going there robbers and ban- 
dits — for that is the name of those persons, who 
have been faithless to their country, faithless to 
the American flag, reckless of treaties, and reck- 
less of national and personal honor— persons bet- 
ter fitted by far to be Mexicans, than to be 
protected by the stars and stripe3 of the American 
flag. It is our duty— it is the duty especially of 
the northern people— to protect that frontier, and 
to stand by the treaty at all hazards. If that is 
not protected, and the American boundary i3 ex- 
tended there beyond our present limits, then comes 



another question of annexation, the annexation 
of a Sierra Madre republic upon the southern 
side— about two or three States; and as an offset 
then, Canadian annexation upon the northern side, 
with States six or seven in number. General Persi- 
fer Smith, in a document which I have before me, 
urges the like establishment of posts along the Gila 
and eastward to the Rio Grande. Six hundred 
cavalry and four hundred infantry he demanded 
there, and he said there was an imperious necessity 
for them. The like necessity is urged for having 
posts established in New Mexico. The last news 
from Texas and New Mexico demonstrates that the 
frontiers of both Texas and about all of New Mexico 
are entirely unsafe at this moment for the want of 
sufficient protection from this Government. The 
news by (he last mail is full of wars, full of the 
sacrifice of human life, in Texas especially, but in 
New Mexico as well as in Texas. There are es- 
timated to be thirty thousand Indians in New 
Mexico, and ten thousand nomadic, wandering 
Indians, upon the borders of Texas and New- 
Mexico. It is stated by Governor Calhoun— I 
vouch him for authority, though I cannot vouch 
for the fact — that amongst that wild, unsettled, 
and nomadic population of Indians— pueblos and 
half-civilized Mexicans— there are only three hun- 
dred real American citizens in New Mexico, un- 
connected with the army, (see despatch No. 58, 
to the Hon. Luke Lea.) Hence you see the neces- 
sity of armed foree .'or protection. The service of 
officers and soldiers in New Mexico is worse than 
any officers or soldiers ever before have been ex- 
posed to, for it is constant war, without even the 
shade of glory — constant suffering, without any ap- 
preciation of it by their country. It can only be 
compared with the inglorious Indian wars in Flor- 
ida; but worse than those even, for the soldier now 
is far from home, without comforts, without ne- 
cessaries even, beyond the reach of civilization or 
sympathy. Utah, too, is in a dangerous condition. 
There; are Indians there interrupting the lines 
of emigration to Oregon, endangering the life of 
every citizen who travels there; and hence the 
necessity for protection. Mr. Holeman, an Indian 
agent, writes from Fort Laramie, Sept. 21, 1851: 
"On my route to Utah, I passed many trains of 
emigrants— some for Oregon, some for California, 
but mostly for Utah. I found many of them in 
great distress, from depredations and robberies 
committed by the Indians; some were robbed of 
all their provisions, and even of the clothing on 
their back; many had their stock stolen, &c." 
* * * * # 

"I find much excitement among the Indians, in 
consequence of the whites settling and taking pos- 
session of their country, driving off and killing 
their game, and in some instances driving off the 
Indians themselves. 

"The great complaint on this score is against 
the Mormons; they seem not to be satisfied with 
taking possession of the valley of the Great Salt 
Lake, but are makingarrangements to settle other, 
and principally the rich, valleys and best lands in 
the Territory. This creates much dissatisfaction 
among the Indians; excites them to acts of revenge; 
they attack emigrants, plunder, and commit mur- 
der, whenever they find a party weak enough to 
enable them to do so; thereby making the inno- 
cent suffer for injuries done by others." 

And here we have the peculiar people of Utah. 
Who knows what they are doing, or intend to do? 
Who can tell? Who can say whether they recog- 
nise allegiance to this country or some other coun- 
try? Who can say whether the laws can be en- 
forced there without a regiment or two to execute 
them? Now, as to Oregon — and I trust the honor- 
able delegate from Oregon is in hie seat, for I am 



6 



about to \ise his name as authority — I have a state- 
ment before me, vouched for by him as coming 
from a Mr. Newell, an intelligent old mountaineer, 
that there are sixty-five tribes of Indians in Ore- 
gon, having the most outlandish names — names I 
never heard of until I looked into the report he 
made. These tribes have the euphonious names of 
Spokans, Oukenegans, Clickitats, Shoqualamicks, 
&c. — names, I will venture to say, thatwere never 
heard of by the great mass of the people of our 
country. The number of tribes the*re are sixty- 
five, thirty tribes north of the Columbia river, and 
thirty-five tribes south; and the number of Indians 
which the delegate from Oregon (General Lane) 
estimates to be in Oregon are over thirty thousand. 
This session ef Congress, the honorable delegate 
has strenuously demanded of Congress more pro- 
tection, and he has censured the Government for 
even removing the rifle regiment to Texa3. 

There, is California, too, upon our hands — Cali- 
fornia abounding in wealth, and not less abound- 
ing in expenditures; the one so well equally bal- 
ancing the other, that it often requires nice arith- 
metical calculation to tell whether the country is 
gaining or losing, for the present, by the acces- 
sion. The late Governor of California estimated 
the number of Indians — and called upon the War 
Department, under that estimate, for protection — 
to be over one hundred thousand. I have no 
doubt that the number was exaggerated; but I 
stand, for the present, upon that estimate. Gov- 
ernor McDougal writes, March 1, 1651, to the Pre- 
sident of the United States: 

"The valley of Los Angeles, of the San Joaquin, 
of the tributaries of the Sacramento, and the coun- 
try around the main sources of that river, and the 
northern coast, contain an Indian force estimated 
at not less than one hundred thousand warriors, all 
animated by a spirit of bitter hostility, and whom 
pacific and forbearing policy encourages into re- 
newed acts of outrage. 

"Rendered bold by impunity, and encouraged 
by success, they are now everywhere rising in 
arms, and every day bring3 the report of some 

new outbreak." 

* * * * * * 

"Protection by our people is regarded as their 
constitutional right; it is about the only benefit 
they can derive from their relation to the Federal 
Government, while their burdens are not light 
ones." 



COST OF FLORIDA WAE. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, to stop ali party clamor, I 
have compiled for my use an estimate of the ex- 
penses of the Florida war, to be compared, if ne- 
cessary, with the expense of these numerous Indian 
wars now on our hands. But, before I make the 
comparison, I wish to remark, that if any man fan- 
cies this country is now in peace with the savage 
tribes around us, he but indulges in fancy. It is a 
state of actual war wherever you go, amongst the 
western savages beyond the settlements. The sav- 
age is fighting now not only for life, for existence, 
but for a home — and for his last home, too. Me 
knows, as well as you do, that you have shut him 
out from the Pacific, and that he can go West no 
further. He knows, as well as you do, that his 
march is no longer eastward, but that he is in the 
heart of your territory now, with the columns of 
emigration pressing him upon every side. He 
stands not ready, as heretofore, to face you with 
formidable numbers in battle, array; but, with the 
tomahawk, he cunningly waits for an opportunity 
to scalp you and your children, who may be emi- 
grating to California or Oregon, or with the ar- 
row to pierce you, or in stealth to creep upon and 



plunder you. War, war exists with the savage on 
every side. There were in Florida, during the 
Florida war, it is believed, not over 1,100 Indians, 
with a few negroes. 

The appropriations for the army and for the sup- 
pression of Indian hostilities, &c, including all 
military operations, were : 

In 1836 $S,111,950 

In 1837 9,308,521 

In 183S 10,007,546 

Total $27,42S,017 

Besides these, there were subsequent, appropria- 
tions for arrears, and for paying the claims of 
States for services of militia, &c. 

The regular force in service in the United States* 
during that period averaged 7,500; the total mili- 
tia force wa3 about 36,000. averaging three months 
service — that is, equal to 9,000 men for the year, 
or 3,000 for three years; that force added to the 
army would give about 10,500 men, at an ave- 
rage expense of $9,100,000, or $860 per man. The 
least possible estimates that can be made of 
the coat of the Florida war was $11,000,000 or 
$-13,000,0000. 

The average force of the army for the three yeare 
succeeding the war with Mexico ha3 been ten 
thousand five hundred, with a few hundred volun- 
teers. The estimates have been under $7,000,000 
per annum, and the appropriation still less. The 
actual expenses probably have not exceeded $8,- 
500,000 per annum, or not $800 per man. Now. 
I know there was extravagance in the Florida war. 
I know volunteers were called out when they were 
not needed. I know firewood was brought from 
the levee of New Orleans to Florida, where fire- 
wood abounded. I challenge no comparison with 
such expenditures, justified even by a Democratic 
administration and a Democratic Congress; but 
what I do challenge is a comparison of the geo- 
graphical position of Florida, in the heart of our 
settled ceuntry almost, accessible by sea and by 
steam, with comparatively little or no land trans- 
portation within the reach of the great markets of 
New Orleans and the northern cities— with the geo- 
graphical position of New Mexico, of Utah, of Tex- 
as,the Upper Rio Grande.and on the Texas northern 
boundary— with the costly, golden prices of Oregon 
and California, remote from cities and abound- 
ing in immigrating colonists, enhancing by their 
numbers the value of every thing enormously. 
The navai expenses of the Florida war, the cost of 
revenue cutters in service there— all such charges 
I throw out of account, for the challenged point 
of comparison is accessibility by water and steam, 
and the expenses of land transportation. Now, 
we have overland wagon routes across a whole 
continent, from Fort Leavenworth in Missouri, 
to Puget's Sound on the Pacific ocean. The rifle 
regiment made the march across a continent, and 
endured more, and suffered more, and cost more, 
than if they had been in the campaign in Mexico. 
Troops, flying squadrons of dragoons, are all the 
while scouring and overrunning what I may call 
the innermost part of the country. The service is 
with them all a service of war; and yet they exhibit 
no such expenditures as these incurred here at 
home in subduing only eleven hundred Indians in 
Florida. 

quartermaster's expenditures. 

The expenses of transportation, of forage, and 
in fact every thingin California, are often ten times 
greater than in other parts of this country; but 
California is not less a part of the United States, 
and it is not less our duty to protect her people, 
in each and every quarter, from the IndianB, ae 



much aa if these Indians were in Tennessee, New 
York, or Alabama. I have before me a paper, too 
long 1 to read, containing' all the expenditures of the 
quartermaster's department for a large number of 
years. Those expenditures have been larger for 
a long time than they have 3hown upon their face, 
in the estimates, especially during, and in conse- 
quence of, the Mexican war, from a system too 
complicated for me here to explain, because I have 
not time to do so. But the actual expenditures of 
the quartermaster's department, for the year end- 
ing- 30tb June, 1S49 — the closing year of Mr. 
Mr. Polk's administration — were $6,090,976 Mr. 
Polk estimated (peace estimates, June 30, 1848) 
$•4,430,000. Congress (August 18, 1S4S) appro- 
priated only $2,940,000 The next year, Decem- 
ber, 184S, the estimates made by Mr. Polk were for 
only §2,000,000; cut down largely by Mr. Polk 
again, from General Jesup'3 estimate, as I am 
prepared to substantiate, and as I fear, because 
there was an incoming Whig administration. The 
estimates, December, 1848, were for $2,000,000, 
and the expenditures were $5,33S,969. Such 
are the legacies of debt in the quartermaster's de- 
partment, which have been left us by a preceding 
administration. The following table of actual ex- 
penditures in the quartermaster's department will 
explain itself: 

Year ending June 30, 1849 $6,090,976 

June 30, 1850 5,338,969 

June 30, 1851 4,892,927 

" " June 30, 1852 (estimated). 4,379.000 

June 30, 1853 (estimated). 3,900,000 

Congress last year cut from the estimate of June 

30, 1852, $2,315,000. The following table will 

explain the estimates ef last year cut off, and 

what is new in the bill for deficiencies : 



Heads of appro- 
priations. 


Ain'tscutoff 
by Con 
grese last 
year. 


Amounts es- 
timnt'd this 
year for de- 
ficiency. 


In the Defi- 
ciency bill. 


Forreg'larsup- 








For incidental 


$630,000 


$917,460 


$795,000 


expenses 
For purchase of 


225,000 


- 


- 


For barracks, 


60,000 


40,000 


40,000 


quarters, k.c. 
For trans'n of 


400,000 


219,000 


219,000 


troops, &c. . 


1,000,000 


890,000 


890,000 




$2,315,000 


$2,066,460 


$1,944,000 



The only complaint I make, Mr. Chairman, 
against General Jesup i9, that he has not had the 
courage at all times to face the Executive and 
Congress, and tell them both of all these expendi- 
tures — what and how indispensably necessary they 
were He should have let the country understand 
from the start what was the cost of the Mexican 
war, and the cost of the Mexican acquisitions. 
And»though he has been a soldier, who has faced 
battle, yet in the Executive Chamber I fear 
that he has not had the courage to face Mr. 
Polk and his estimates at every hazard. 

RESPONSIBILITY Or THE QUARTERMASTER GENERAL. 

I know it is said that the quartermaster is not 
responsible for all his expenditures, i understand 
that argument, and all the force there is in it. 
Here is a book containing the regulations of the 
quartermaster's department. It is the Army Re- 



gulations; and it appears from this that he has a 
complete administrative control of all the officers 
belonging to his department; that it is his duty 
"to provide quarters, hospitals, and transporta- 
tion for all military stores, provisions, camp and 
garrison equipage;" "good and sufficient store- 
houses for all military stores;" "to purchase all 
fuel, forage, straw, and stationery;" "to purchase 
all horses, oxen, mules, and harness, and all wag- 
ons, carts, and boats;" "to purchase dragoon and 
artillery horses;" "saddles, bridles, and other 
necessary equipments;" "to provide materials, 
and direct and superintend the constructing and 
repairing of quarters, barracks, hospitals, store- 
houses, stables, and other necessary and autho- 
rized buildings for the army, and the security of 
public property," (Art. 77-927.) I quote the fol- 
lowing from the Army Regulations: 

933. "It shall be the duty of the quartermaster 
general to make himself acquainted with the fron- 
tiers, both maritime and interior; and with all the 
principal avenues leading to the contiguous Indian 
and foreign territories; with the military resources 
of the country; and the means and facilities of 
transportation, particularly of the districts on the 
frontier*; with the most eligible points for concen- 
trating troops and collecting supplies, whether in 
relation to offensive or defensive operations; with 
the relative expense of concentrating at particular 
positions, and the advantages of those positions; 
and he shall be prepared at all times to give detail- 
ed information on those subjects, when required to 
do so, either by the Secretary of War or the Gene- 
ral-in-Chief." 

934. " He shall, under the orders, or with the ap- 
probation, of the Secretary of War, or the General- 
in-Chief, designate the routes of communication 
between the different posts and armies; the course 
of military roads, and the sites for permanent 
and temporary depots of provisions and military 
stores." 

938. "He shall prepare all the estimates of the 
funds and supplies required for the service of his 
department, and he shall prepare and submit, for 
the sanction of the Secretary of War, plans for 
barracks, quarters, and other improvements, and 
cause the plans, when approved, to be carried into 
effect, as far as the means provided by Congress 
shall enable him." 

I might go on through the 1,07S sections of the 
quartermaster'3 duties to show his responsibilities. 
The most important branch of the army is his. 
Without him nothing of importance can'be done; 
and, indeed, every thing depends upon him. I 
know there will be an attempt to evade for him, 
and to avoid for him, these responsibilities, be- 
cause the Administration cannot be struck at with- 
out striking him down first; and in striking him 
down, an army officer, not of our political faith, 
will be struck at, but there he is; these are his du- 
ties, these are his responsibilities; and no petty 
quibbling, nor artful dodging, can relieve him; and 
1 am sure he himself does not wish to be relieved 
from any duty the army regulations impose upon 
him. 

EXPENSES INCREASED BY CONGRESS, 1850. 

It must be borne in mind that Congress has 
largely increased the army since the peace estab- 
lishment of 1845. It has created the costly regi- 
ment of mounted riflemen. In 1845, January 1st, 
the organization of the army was S, 654; but Jan- 
uary 1,1852, it was 12,311. 'By the act of June 
17, 1850, all companies serving at the eeveral 
military posts on the western frontier, and at re- 
mote and distant stations, are entitled to seventy 
privates each, and at other stations the number of 
privates per company is: 



In the dragoons 55 Additional, 24 

In mounted rifles 64 " 10 

In artillery 42 " 32 

In lisrht artillery 64 " 10 

In infantry 42 " 32 

At the remote stations referred to in the law, 
thereare nowstationed, of 

Dragoons 18 companies. 

Mounted rifles 10 " 

Artillery 11 " 

Infantry 59 " 

Total 98 companies. 

MOUNTED FORCE. 

Organization in 1852, 2,632 Strength, 1,960 
Organization in 1845, 1.29S " 1,108 



Increase 1 ,334 



852 



The additional cost of supporting a regiment of 
cavalry over and above that of a regiment of in- 
fantry is as follows: 

On the frontier of Missouri or Iowa. . $139,827 

In Texas 213,331 

In New Mexico 343, 54S 

The act of June 17, 1842, also raised the bounty 
on enlistments, in lieu of transportation, to sums 
ranging from $23 to $142. 

Examination of such fads as these will show why 
and how there have been increased the expenses of 
the army. 

THE EXPENSES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

I hasten on from this dry and tedious detail, but 
I cannot flatter you, however, that I shall present 
any detailed statement less dry. It has been said 
that the expenditures of this Government have run 
up to $50,000,000; and 1 am asked, I think I hear, 
" How is it that you Whigs have thus run up the 
aggregate expenses of the Government, and that 
now, when you got alon<r under John Quincy Ad- 
ams with only some $12,000,000, you estimate 
some $42,892,299 to be necessary for the fiscal 
year ending July 1, 1853?" Indeed, an honorable 
member from Indiana has already entered into 
this sort of fiscal criticism, and I am prepared to 
answer him, and all others with him. 

In the first place, I ask bis attention to the legacy 
of debts and the legacy of appropriations be- 
queathed to us by the Mexican war. War is a 
costly as well as a b'oody luxury, and it is always 
well to comprehend its cost a3 well as its glories. 

LEGACY OF DEBT. 

The Mexican war left upon the country an im- 
mediate national debt of about $80,000,000, exclu- 
sive of pensions, bounty lands, and the annual 
additional, but incalculable, cost of governing and 
keeping what we won from, or bought of, Mexico. 
The ten million Texas indemnity bill may be 
added to that, for all that is yet to be paid, with 
interest for fourteen years. The Mexican war 
bounty lands absorbed 6,036,960 acres of the pub 
lie lands, worth, at $1 25 per acre, $7,546,200; 
and the bounty land bill of Septe Tiber 28, 1850, 
some, if not most of which, in some form or other, 
is for soldiers serving in consequence of the Mex- 
ican war, absorbs, it is estimated, 48,000,000 acres 
more, worth $60,000,000. (See Treasury report, 
1850, statement K.) We have just passed ano- 
ther bounty land law, the number of acres to be 
absorbed by which I have no means of calculating. 
The pensions, under act of 1848, paid to 30th June, 
lS5'\were $1,198,141 



Pensions under act of 1848, estimated 

for 1851 and 1852, were 1,525,000 

(See statements by James E. Heath, Treasury 
Report, 1850— statement M, No. 1, and M, No 2.) 
The expenses entailed upon the country in con- 
sequence of the Mexican war and its acquisitions, 
can be understood only by a relative comparison of 
what were the expenditures of this Government 
before and after the war. Accurate tables have 
been prepared — the curious in such matters will 
find them in the Treasury Report of 1850— showing 
(see statement I:) 

The actual and estimated expenditures for the sev- 
en years ending the 30th June, 1852, to amount 

to $ 294,807,407 

The expenditures for the year ending 
30th June, 1845 — the year immedi- 
ately preceding the war— having 
been $21,380,049, the aggregate 
expenditures for the seven suc- 
ceeding years upon that basis 
would have amounted to 149,660,345 

Showing an excess over the peace 

establishment of 1845 of $145,147,062 

The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report of 
1S50, estimates, on most excellent data, the expen- 
ditures and liabilities chargeable directly to the 
Mexican war and the acquisitions consequent upon 
the treaty of peace, to be $217,175,577. The de- 
tails of this estimate are too long to be quoted, but 
it can be seen in part in such items as pensions 
above stated, and 
Instalments and interest under twelfth article of 

treaty with Mexico $16,38S,396 

Payment of liquidated claims against 

Mexico, per act 29th July, 1848 2,0S9,57S 

Interest on war debt to 30th June, 

1852 13,387,544 

Interest on war debt Irom 30th June, 

1852, to maturity 41,173,493 

Texas boundary stock 10,000,000 

Interest for fourteen years, 5 per cent 7,000,000 
Mexican claims, per treaty, (paid).. . 3,250,000 
Survey boundary line between United 

States and Mexico 335,000 

Survey of the coast of California 200,000 

Lighthouses, docks, custom-houses, 

hospitals, &c, in California, (small 

estimate) .. .-. 640,000 

The excess of expenditures of War 

Department in the maintenance of 

troops, &c , in the new Territories, 

is estimated now (every year) at.. 4,556,709 

DEBT PAID BY THE ADMINISTR ATI3N. 

This Administration has had to meet such ob- 
ligations as these, and many more, the bequests 
of the preceding administration. Indeed, one of 
it3 chief duties has been to pay the debts of its 
predecessors. 

The public registered debt on the 30th of Novem- 
ber, 1850, was $64,228,238 

The public debt 20th November, 1851, 

was 62,560,395 

Since the Whigs came into power, March 4, 
1S49, they have freed the country from an amount 
of public debt, as follows : 
Stock of the loan of 1843— act of 3d 

March, 1843 $231,300 00 

Stock of the loan of 1846— act of 22d 

July, 1846 9 74 

Stock of the loan of 1S47— act of 28th 

January, 1847 1,883,200 00 

Mexican indemnity — act of 10th Au- 
gust, 1846 303,573 92 

Bounty land scrip — act 11th Febru- 
ary, 1847 232,875 00 



Old funded and unfunded debt— act 

4th August, 1790, and 12th June, 

1798 7,814 87 

Awards under the fifteenth article of 

the treaty with Mexico, for which 

the issue of stock was authorized, 

but which were paid in cash 3,006,275 51 

Payments under twelfth article of 

the treaty with Mexico, (by in- 
stalments) 11,258,140 31 



Pensions under the acts of 1848 431,240 00 

Expenses of Post Office Department 633,250 00 

Excess of expenditures of War De- 
partment in the maintenance of 
troops, &c, in the new Territories 4,556,709 75 

Interest on so much of the debt con- 
tracted in consequence of and dur- 
ing the late war 2,820,242 97 



$16,923,189 35 
Nearly seventeen millions of dollars ! 

DEBENTURES, DRAWBACKS, NO EXPENDITURES. 

To understand the comparative expenditures of 
this Government, it will be necessary to bear in 
mind the changes that the laws have made in the 
mode of registering the expenditures from year to 
year. Prior to June 30, 1849, the expenses of col- 
lecting the revenue from customs, lands, debenture 
bonds, refunding duties, &c, were never register- 
ed in the annual expenditures, but the cost of col- 
lecting the revenue alone for the first time, of late 
registered as a part of the expenses of Government, 
is over two millions a year; and these two millions 
appear now, under this Administration, as a part 
of the annual expenditures. The same remark 
may be made of other items, that go to swell up 
the $4S,005,S78, which the Register of the Treasu- 
ry reports a3 making the annual expenditures for 
the year ending June 30, 1851. The new system 
is— and it is a wise system— to record all expendi- 
tures, all out-goings, such a3 the following, and 
Whigs see it done with pleasure: 
Repayment of duties on sugar and molasses, ille- 
gally exacted by collectors $439,588 

Payment ol debentures, drawbacks, boun- 
ties, and allowances 794 639 

Repayment to importers of excess of de- 
posits for unascertained duties 896,024 

Debentures and other charges, (customs) 72,623 
Expenses of collecting revenue from cus- 
toms prior to 1st January, 1850 1,888,471 

Payment of public debt and interest 4,217,986 

These are all items that have not hitherto figured 
in the annual expenditures of the Government, and 
these amount in all to $8,309,331. Indeed, the es- 
timates of the Secretary of the Treasury, for the 
year ending June 30, 1852, were $33,667,489. 
The estimates for the year ending June 30, 1853, 
are $29,257,533; while the expenditures as appro- 
priated by the last Congress, and the Congresses 
preceding, were #48,005,873, being over-estimates 
for year ending 1852, $14,338,339. 

COST OF MEXICAN ACQUISITIONS. 

The Secretary of the Treasury states, in part, 
of the appropriations required by our new Territo- 
ries, and in the fulfilment of our obligations con- 
sequent upon the acquisition, the following items: 
Survey of the boundary line between the United 

States and New Mexico $ 120,000 00 

Survey of the west coast 150,000 00 

Dry dock in California 360,000 00 

Mileage and per diem of Senators and 

Representatives from California, 

Utah, and New Mexico 26,462 40 

Territorial governments of Utah and 

New Mexico 61,400 00 

Judicial expenses, including mar- 

shals 77,200 00 

Expenses for commission for settling 

land titles in California 50,000 00 

Expenses for surveys in California. . 18,500 00 

Expenses for surveys and sales of 

public lands in California 239,075 00 



Making an aggregate of $9,549,080 12 

These are all expenditures falling upon the Ad- 
ministration, unknown to preceding ones, and in 
consequence of our Mexican acquisitions! 

Now, nearly all the army of the United States 
is in Texas, or in our Mexican acquisitions, and 
much of our navy is employed on the Pacific coast, 
where the co3t of every thing is enormous, in conse- 
quence of the abundance of gold. Land surveys 
are to be begun, land titles to be. settled, revenue 
cutters to be kept up; in short, a new and great 
country there is to be colonized and provided for, 
with coast surveys, lights, fortifications, docks, 
mailships, and harbor improvements; and where 
there exists now little or nothing, every thing is to 
be brought up to an equality with the old States. 
There is no calculating for future expenditures 
there. Already we have on our table a bill re- 
storing to California what is called her "civil 
fund" — a fund expended even before her organi- 
zation as a State— amounting at present to about 
half a million in the bill that has come down from 
the Senate, but as a claim upon us amounting to 
$1,300,000 in all. 

We must not, however, now shrink from the 
responsibilities war has brought upon us, and that 
we have assumed. After we have annexed Texas, 
and stretched out our arms over the Rocky moun- 
tains to the Pacific, we cannot turn back from 
what we have undertaken. All of these lands are 
now our country, under our Government, and we 
must protect and provide for them. There is no 
ambition so mean as that which covets the posses- 
sions of others, but grudges the cost of governing 
them. 

THE REVENUE AND TARIFF OF 1846. 

The expenses of the administration of the Gov- 
ernment now being necessarily so large, I shall be 
asked, no doubt, " How is it that you Whigs, who 
predicted the tariff of 1846 would not yield revenue 
enough to carry on the Government then, now find 
it yields enough not only to maintain the expenses 
of what you call a double United States, but to 
leave a surplus of some millions in the treasury?" 
It is a fair question, and I will not shirk it; I will 
meet it face to face. There was a time when it 
would have appalled me, but only because I was 
ignorant of the history, the written and unwritten 
history, of the tariff of 1846. It may well have ap- 
palled a Whig to know why it was, when such 
sound men as George Evans and others predicted 
in the Senate and in this House that the tariff of 
1846 would not yield enough to carry on the Gov- 
ernment, that it should really yield enough, and 
more too. I propose to solve this apparent contra- 
diction of prophecy and experience, and to the so- 
lution I beg the careful attention of the House. 

When George Evans and others, in 1846, made 
these predictions, they were based upon the tariff 
bill of July 30, 1846; which cut up all importations 
into schedules, from letter "A to letter I," and 
then affixed to them horizontal, universal ad valo- 
rem*, from one hundred per cent, down to five per 
cent., and "duty free." The novelty of such a 
Procrustean tariff bed attracted their attention. No 
other nation under the sun, civilized or savage, 
had ever been thus before, to say the least, so 



10 



original. Procrustes struck out the idea of a bed, 
upon which short men were to be stretched out to 
fit it, and long men to be chopped off to fit it; but 
a universal ad valorem tariff bed was something 
altogether new in political economy. So many 
cents duty on a gallon of brandy or wine, was a 
duty, a specific duty, everybody could compre- 
hend; but "one hundred per centum ad valorem" 
(-"schedule A") on brandy and other spirits dis- 
tilled from grain — such schedules, from "A" to 
"I", confounded them. Brandy, wines, and a 
thousand other like things, susceptible of accu- 
rate specific admeasurement, why, they asked, ad 
valorem then? It was a premium for bad brandy, 
and half-poisoned wine, everybody saw; for, the 
cheaper was the nominal cost abroad, the less was 
the duty at home, unless a wrongful or fraudu- 
lent system of invoices was introduced, by which 
all such things were rated abroad, below what they 
were worth. What appraisers, they asked, too, 
can tell what wine is worth, (ad valorem,) unless 
they have been experiensed, practiced wine-bib- 
bers from their youth up? Even they, too, might 
be deceived, for when liquors come over sea, espe- 
cially high-priced wines, they often come, as it is 
termed technically, "sick;" that is, muddy and 
roiled ; apparently of an ad valorem not quarter 
price. Universal geniuses, they said, were wanted 
under such universal ad valorems for appraisers — 
the universal genius that can turn from arrack, or 
kirchenwasser, to ginger-roots and gelatine, or 
from bananas to beeswax, with an instant, tho- 
rough comprehension of every thing. Their great 
objection, however, and their apprehensions, came 
from the serious radical defects in the principle 
of an universal ad valorem system, and from 
the numerous frauds that must constantly be 
arising, and the constant conflicts the Trea- 
sury must always be in with merchants, 
American and foreign. Their leading objec- 
tion was, that it based the American tariff upon 
European ad valorems — that is, made our Ameri- 
can tariff in Europe; and that when it thus surren- 
dered American to European interests, there was 
no fixed system, no proper rule, no real law pre- 
scribed for estimating these values even in Europe. 
It is obvious that an American tariff, which sur- 
renders the whole American system of home valua- 
tions to foreign valuations, is a foreign tariff, levi- 
ed at American ports. If the value of cottons, or 
woollens, or iron-wrought articles, is fixed in Eu- 
rope, and upon that value, thus fixed there, a duty 
is levied and collected in New York, two things 
are obvious — first, that such a tariff is a foreign 
levied tariff, even though collected under American 
law; and, second, that the value, the ad valorem, 
depends upon foreign estimation, foreign caprice, 
or, it may be, foreign fraud or perjury. The tariff 
law of July, 1846, was open to all these objections; 
and I shall show, on Democratic, anti-tariff au- 
thority, too, has been admitted so to be. 

The force of these objections struck Mr. Secreta- 
ry Walker and the Committee of Ways and Means 
in 1846, and they did not believe that as the £mjff 
stood then, under the act of July, with the while 
ad valorem system then subject to foreign caprice, 
that they could collect duty enough under it to 
carry on the Government. I make these remarks, 
and draw these inferences, because in that very 
extraordinary place for making tariffs, the Civil 
and Diplomatic bill, approved August 10, 1846, 
there was inserted — may I not say, smuggled; for 
who then probably foresaw its full effect? — this 
very significant and pregnant item: 

"That in appraising all goods at any port in the 
United States, heretofore subjected to specific du- 
ties, but upon which ad valorem duties are imposed 
by the act of July 30, 1846, entitled r An act reduc- 



ing the duty on imports, and for other purposes,' 
reftrence shall he had to values and invoices of sim- 
ilar goods imported during (hat fiscal year, under 
such general and uniform regulations, for the pre- 
vention of fraud or under- valuation, as shall be pre- 
scribed by the Secretary of the Treasury." 

1 call this item in this civil and diplomatic bill a 
significant and pregnant item, for it not only re- 
fers to, and to some extent revives, the tariff of 
1842, (certainly as to values and invoices,) but 
what is more, it vested in Mr. Walker, then Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, the power of prescriptioa 
of such general and uniform regulations (as toad 
valorems) as he might think proper. Mr. Walker 
instantly availed himself of this plenipotent power; 
and, in order to levy as high duties as possible on 
high ad valorems, he not only revived what he 
couid of the tariff of 1842, but he went a great deal 
further, even into what the Supreme Court of the 
United States subsequently decided to be contrary 
to law. He meant to baulk the prediction of Whig 
prophets, law or no law; and he did do it in defi- 
ance of law. 

ILLEGAL TREASURY CIRCULARS. 

There are, Mr. Chairman — you as a lawyer 
know — two kinds of law, written and unwrittea, 
the statute law, such as that of July 30, and August 
10, 1846, and the common law, the law of "pre- 
scription." The common law of the Treasury De- 
partment is a Treasury code, called Treasury cir- 
culars; and, as the tariff of 1846 was going into op- 
eration, Mr. Walker began to scatter them as thick 
as the leaves of Vallambrosa. The Treasury code, 
which issues its rescripts in Treasury circulars, 
has power more plenipotent for the time being than 
any statute law. The appraisers, who inspect and 
examine imports, and judge of their values, hold 
their offices from the Treasury, and whatever the 
Treasury prescribes, with them is law. Hence, 
when Mr. Walker had, in the Civil and Diplomatic 
bill, or thought he had, the power of "prescrip- 
tion" as to the ad valorems, and exercised that 
power without restraint, he became the law. 
This power, I shall show you, was exercised with 
a high hand from December, 1846, up to January, 
1851. 

Mr. Walker himself began the first exercise of 
the power of prescription in a somewhat famous 
Treasury circular., November 25, 1846. He quotes,, 
as if with exultation, the hitherto hidden item in 
the civil and diplomatic bill. He dictates, also, 
the modes and manner of appraisements, thus: 

" The principle upon which the appraisement is 
based is this : That the actual value of articles on 
shipboard at the last place of shipment to the United; 
States, including all preceding expenses, duties, 
costs, charges, and transportation, is the foreign 
value upon which the duty is to be assessed. The 
cost and charges that are to be embraced in fixing 
the valuation over and above the value of the article 
at the place of growth, production, or manufacture, 
are: 

"1st. The transportation, shipment, and terms — 
shipment, with all the expenses included, from the 
place of growth, production, or manufacture, 
whether by land or water carriage, to the vessel 
in which a shipment is made, to the United States. 
Included in these estimates is the value of the sack, 
package, box, crate, hogshead, barrel, bale, cask, 
can, and covering of all kinds, bottles, jars, ves- 
sels, and demijohns. 

"2d. Commission, at the usual rate, but id n« 
case lesd than two and a half per cent., and when 
there is a distinct brokerage, that to be added. 

"3d. Export duties, including such duties at alt 
places from the place of growth, production, or 



11 



manufacture, to the last place of shipment to the 
United States. 

"4th. Cost of placing cargoes on board ship, in- 
cluding drayage, labor, bill of lading, lighterage, 
town duties, and shipping charges, dock and 
wharf dues, and all charges to place the article up- 
on shipboard. 

"Discounts are never to be allowed in any case, 
except on articles where it has been (he uniform 
and established usage heretofore, and never more 
than the actual discount, positively known to the 
appraiser. 

"The freight from the last place of shipment to 
the United States is not to be included in the valu- 
tion; and insurance is also excluded by law." 

Here the Treasury circular assumed that the 
principle on which the appraisement is based is 
the actual value on board ship at the place of ship- 
ment, including all preceding expenses, dulies, 
costs, charges, and transportation. The difference 
was essential to the revenue of the United States; 
you will see whether the duty was levied on the 
actual value at the place of purchase or procure- 
ment, or at the place of shipment. Silks, or vel- 
vets, purchased at Lyons, in France, or watches 
or jewelry purchased at Geneva, had one value; 
but when transported for shipment to Havre, sub- 
ject, it may be, to city duties, or duties interna- 
tional, to costs and charges also of transportation, 
that original value was essentially enhanced. 
Goods purchased of the manufacturer in the inte- 
rior of Germany, or at forced auction sales, had 
one invoice — one value at the time of purchase 
but at the time and place of shipment, from a 
great rise in value, or from some other cause, the 
invoice or ad valorem would be altogether a differ- 
ent one from what it was at the start. Here, then, 
in one Treasury rescript, Mr. Walker made a 
tariff of his own, and his appraisers in New York, 
Boston, and in every custom-house, of course 
obeyed . 

This Treasury rescript was followed by another, 
July 6, 1847, more imperial by far than its prede- 
cessor. This circular starts with stating that the 
twenty-third and twenty-fourth sections of the 
tariff act of 1842 are in force, and gives the Trea- 
sury construction of them: 

"This construction (I quote his circular) of the 
Department must be binding upon all who per- 
form any duties tmder these laws, from whatever 
source their appointment or authority may be de- 
rived; and from such decision there can be no appeal, 
except to the judicial powers, (Merchant ap- 
raisers — appraisers selected by the collector — were 
claiming- their right to construe the law for them- 
selves, independent of the circular.) The Depart- 
ment, notwithstanding the broad language and 
comprehensive authority conferred upon it by Con- 
gress, feels bound to adopt the construction of the 
revenue laws, pronounced in solemn adjudications 
by the Supreme Court of the United States." 
(The merchant appraisers were hushed at a blow!) 

Mr. Walker goes on to say, treating of the right 
claimed to estimate the market value of goods at 
the place or time of purchase: 

" The most enormous frauds would be the con- 
sequence of such construction. Simulated, ficti 
tious, and antedated purchases to suit the period 
of lowest prices, would prevail extensively, to the 
great injury of the fair trader and of the revenue. 
In truth, under such system, the whole import- 
ing business would soon be thrown into the hands 
of the dishonest and fraudulent, who would be 
willing to produce antedated or fictitious foreign 
sales, and that most useful and meritorious citi- 
zen, the honest and fair trader, would be thrown 
entirely out of the market. It is known at pre- 



sent — at the commencement of this proposed sys- 
tem — that, even where the purchasers are not 
deemed by the parties fraudulent, the person de- 
signing to import into the United States goes to 
some prior purchaser, who has purchased, not for 
importation into the United States, at some prior 
date when the goods were much lower in value, 
and imports the goods in the name of the first 
purchaser, consenting to give a certain profit or 
price on the delivery here, and thus deprives the 
revenue of the difference in value, and obtains a 
most unjust advantage over the fair trader, who 
will resort to no such artifices. It is the duty of 
this Department to declare that such a practice 
is a fraud upon the revenue, and subjects the. goods 
to seizure and confiscation, and the parties com- 
mitting the fraud to all the penalties prescribed 
by law; and the utmost vigilance is enjoined upon 
collectors, appraisers, and all other officers of the 
customs, in taking all proper measures to detect 
and Dunish all who are engaged in such fraudu- 
lent practices." 

This circular the Secretary followed up by an- 
other, August 7, 1848, in which he soys: 

"Forced sales of goods in the foreign market at 
reduced prices under extraordinary and peculiar 
circumstances, cannot be taken as the true market 
value of such goods. When trade is paralyzed by 
revolution, and sacrifices or goods take place, sales 
then i.-i ide, not being characterized by the ordina- 
ry iree and healthy state of trade, dor.ot, it is con- 
i Lived, form proper data for the establishment of 
an 'actual 'market value' in contemplation of 
law." 

There is sense and sound reason in all this; but ii 
was, as will be seen in the end, in violation of law. 
The dangers to the revenue from changing all spe- 
cific duties into universal ad valorems, brought out 
yet another circular, December 26, 1848, in which, 
the Secretary says: « 

"The intent of the 17th section of the act of 30tb 
of August, 1842, in the appointment of merchant 
appraisers, is evidently to give the merchants an 
opportunity to appeal from one class of appraisers- 
to another. But it is clear that Congress did not 
design to relinquish the power in the Government 
to select the merchant appraisers to whom the case 
might be referred, nor to give the parties appeal- 
ing any more voice in the selection of such apprais- 
ers than of any other Government officers. To 
consult the parties concerned, or allow tJiem a voice in, 
the selection of merchant appraisers, would soon re- 
sult in permitting the importers to control the ap- 
praisement of their own goods, and it is presumed 
is not permitted at any port. Merchant apprais- 
ers should be particularly instructed, that when 
acting in that capacity, they are to be governed by 
the same rules and regulations as provided by law 
for the direction of regular appraisers, and are to 
act upon the principle that the invoice price, or even 
the price actually paid for an article of merchandise, is 
by no means a true criterion of the fair market value 
as prescribed by taw. Adopt a contrary principle, 
and one who is so fortunate as to have a quantity 
of merchandise given him, would be entitled to re- 
ceive it free of duty, or at a nominal duty, if pur- 
chased at nominal prices, and different rates would 
often be assessed by appraisers on articles of the 
same value. The fair market value intended by 
law, is the general or ruling price of the article 
'in the principal markets of the country from which 
the sameshall have been imported.' " 

The Secretaries of the Treasury who followed 
Mr. Walker necessarily followed the principles of 
construction he had established in his circulars and 
the precedents, until they were overruled by the 



12 



courts; and, among them all, they piled circular 
upon circular, Pelion upon Ossa, till an indignant 
community appealed from the high court of the 
Treasury to the higher federal courts of judicature. 
The principles of collecting duties enacted by 
these Treasury circulars, and all in violation of 
law, as subsequently decided, were: 

1st. That the value of goods at the time and 
place of shipment to the United States were to be 
the ad valorem, on which duties were to bo collected 
at the American custom-houses. 

2d. That the Treasury circulars were binding 
and conclusive upon collectors and all classes of 
appraisers — merchant as well as Government ap- 
praisers— and that the Government had power in 
removing as well as in selecting merchant ap- 
praisers. 

These Treasury circulars thus established a ta- 
riff of theirown, known under no act of Congress, 
and as soon as they were tested in the federal 
court, the federal court swept them away at once, 
The Whigs contended, and contended truly, that 
the tariff acts of 1S46, as they have passed, left the 
whole revenue of the Government a prey to foreign 
fraud, or foreign caprice, or foreign invoices, sub- 
ject to all sort of foreign fluctuation of value. The 
Whigs contended that under such a tariff there 
could be no adequate revenue. The Whigs con- 
tended, that to allow foreign manufacturers to fix 
the market values of all dutiable (American im- 
ported) manufactures, at their own door, by their 
own workshops, was not only wrongful, and sub- 
versive of all true principles of a tariff, or sound 
political economy, but in utter violation of the 
Constitution of the United States, which requires 
that "all duties shall be uniform throughout the 
United States." The keen eye of Mr. Walker saw 
all this; and hence in the civil and diplomatic bill 
(August 10, 1848) he obtained, as he thought, 
new powers for Treasury constructions; and hence 
his great effort, under the tariff act of 1842, to make 
his construction and instructions "conclusive and 
binding." It is impossible to say, even to guess, 
how much of additional duties he gained to the 
Government by these illegal circulars; but if is 
enough to show, by his own Treasury confessions, 
that without such circulars, under the tariff of 
1846, "enormous frauds, simulated, fictitious and 
antedated purchases" would have prevailed; and, 
"under such a system, the whole importing busi- 
ness would soon be (have been) thrown into the 
hands of the dishonest and fraudulent." 

NULLIFIED TREASURY CIRCULARS. 

These Treasury circulars run on, and were acted 
upon as law, from December, 1846, till January, 
1851, when the Supreme Court of the United States 
nullified the great body of them, and pronounced 
them void, and without law. The revenue, never- 
theless — the revenue boasted of as so large, but 
made so large only by lawless circulars — was col- 
lected under them for three years and over. Judge 
Woodbury, sitting in a case in Boston, (Greely vs. 
Thompson and Johnson,) first overruled these cir- 
culars. He decided: 

1. That the date of the procurement of a cargo of 
iron in Newport, Wales, to wit, the 24th of Janua- 
ry, 1849, was the time at which the appraisers 
should have fixed the value of the iron, and not the 
date of invoice or bill of lading, the 24th of Febru- 
ary; (the price had materially advanced during the 
previous thirty days, and the jury assessed dam- 
ages against the collector in the sum $ 6,681 28, as 
illegally exacted.) 

A like case was made in New York. N. L. & 
G. Griswold sued the collector for excess of duties 
upon plantain bark, or hemp and sugar, imported 



from Manilla, the collector exacting duties upon 
the market value at the time of shipment, and the 
plaintiffs paying under protest, contending that 
the law only compelled them to pay duties upon 
the market value at the time of purchase. The 
jury, under the instructions of Judge Nelson, gave 
a verdictto the plaintiff of $'3,206 44, (difference,) 
and the verdict was affirmed, on appeal, by the Su- 
preme Court in Washington. 

These two case3, the pioneers of others now 
pressing, not only nullified the Treasury rescripts, 
and broke down the Treasury code, but they ex- 
posed the revenue to all the fatal consequences that 
Mr. Walker had set forth in his circulars, and re- 
alized at once the prediction of such men as George 
Evans and others, that under such a tariff the Gov- 
ernment could not be carried on. These decisions 
were made known immediately to the Treasury 
Department, to the Ways and Means Committee 
of the House, and to the Finance Committee of the 
Senate, and they inspired all with alarm. A 
double alarm was felt. First, it was asked, what 
are we to do for revenue? and next, how are we to 
get rid of paying back the enormous sums in illegal 
duties we have been over four years exacting un- 
der these illegal Treasury circulars? An honorable 
Senator from Virginia, (Mr. Hunter,) the chair- 
man of the Finance Committee, a gentleman,! am 
happy to see, whose views are extending beyond 
the Blue Ridge and tide-water, immediately 
brought the whole difficulty and danger before the 
Senate. He introduced a bill which, March 3, 1851, 
became a law, and which really and substantially 
revolutionized the old tariffs, in re-enacting the 
Treasury circulars, and providing stronger guards 
and greater securities than ever against under-val- 
uations, false invoices, unequal duties, &c. Mr. 
Hunter, in introducing his bill, said: 

"The result will be, that hereafter, unless we 
legislate in relation to the subject, the foreign va- 
lue of goods will be computed at the time of the 
procurement or purchase, or at the place of pur- 
chase and time of importation, and not at the time 
and place of importation, as has been hereto- 
fore done, and is now proposed. This would give 
rise to a great inequality, and open a door, perhaps a 
very wide door, to fraxid. All men experienced in 
regard to this matter testify alike. All the Secre- 
taries of the Treasury — Mr. Walker, Mr. Meredith, 
Mr. Corwin — were of the same opinion in regard 
to the mode in which the foreign value should be 
computed. And when we come to look at the 
effect of substituting the value at the time and 
place of purchase, for that time ai-.d place which 
this bill proposes, and Mr. Walker's circular re- 
quired, we find that it throws open a very wide 
door to fraud, and is calculated to drive the import- 
ing business into the hands of foreign merchants; 
thus discriminating in favor of foreign and against 
our own importers." 

The tariff law of 1846, we thus see, as expounded 
by the court, left the whole revenue system subject 
to "great inequality," and "to fraud," and was 
calculated "to drive the importing business into the 
hands of foreign merchants," "discriminating 
against our own." 

Mr. Hunter continues— and I cite his authority, 
because his condemnation of the principles upon 
which the tariff act of 1846 left the revenue to be 
collected will have greater weight than any thing 
I could say: 

"If you adopt the principle laid down by the 
Supreme Court, the same ship might bring a cargo 
from the same place and deliver it at the same 
port. But one part of this cargo having been pur- 
chased when the vessel sailed, and the other before, 
say thirty days, as wa3 done with the iron in the 
case of Thompson and Forman, and the same ar> 



13 



tide purchased at different times, but delivered at 
the same moment, would be subject to different 
rates of duty. This would not only produce a great 
inequality between man and man, but would often 
afford an opportunity and temptation for fraud, 
and make it very difficult for the appraisers to as- 
certain what was the precise value of these goods 
at the time designated by law for their estimation. 
Let us take, by way of illustration, the case of port 
wine in the warehouses of London. Wine may 
have been kept there improving, and, after having 
been kept two or three years, the importer, accord- 
ing to this decision, would have to pay duty for it 
according to its value at the time of purchase when 
it was new; and thus, although he sold the old ar- 
ticle, he would have a great advantage over another 
importer, who bought the article out of the ware- 
house and paid for it the value at the time of im- 
portation. 

"Again: If we were to adopt such a principle of 
valuation as this, the manufacturer would, in very 
many instances, have the advantage in carrying 
on the import trade with our own country, and 
would probably possess himself of the largest 
share; for such a mode of valuation would discri- 
minate in his favor. The manufacturer who has a 
great quantity of goods on hand, and can wait, 
when the market is glutted, until they rise in va- 
lue, according to this decision, could send them 
over here and pay duty for them according to their 
value at the time of procurement, or by a fictitious 
sale transfer them to some consignee, or man of 
straw, at a date when prices were lower. He 
would thus have an advantage over the American 
importer, which would, to a great extent, throw 
the business of importation into his hands." 

TARIFF ACT, MARCH, 1851. 

It is almost impossible to describe in stronger 
terms the vicious principles of revenue in the tariff 
act, which were left to us by the Congress of 
1846. They justify every prediction, every an- 
nouncement of the Whigs of that day, and when 
enforced by the decisions of the Supreme Court, 
Congress immediately proceeded to correct them; 
and without the act of March 3, 1851, a sufficient 
revenue could not have been collected. The new 
tariff act of March 3, 1S51, provides that— 

"The actual market value, or wholesale price, 
at the period of exportation to the United States in 
the principal marketsof thecountry," (of export:) 

Shall be the real market value on which the duty 
shall be levied in the United States custom-house, 
to which shall be added— 

"All costs and charges, except insurance, and in- 
cluding, in every case, a charge far commissions, at 
the usual rates, as the true value at the pott where 
the same may be entered, upon which the duties 
shall be assessed." 

This new tariff act gave the force of law to the 
nullified Treasury circulars ; nay, went further in 
subsequent sections, by creating four travelling 
appraisers to go from port to port, to secure, as far 
as possible, an uniformity of duties in the ports 
from Eastport, Maine, to Puget's Sound, in Oregon. 
The act of 1851 is what the lawyers call a Con- 
gressional cognovit, toall the indictments of George 
Evans and others, in the Congress of 1846. Under 
the old Treasury circulars, issued against law, and 
under this law alone, has the tariff of 1846 been 
able to yield revenue enough to carry on the Gov- 
ernment and to meet the pubtic debt. The Trea- 
sury circulars, however, have bequeathed to the 
country hosts of lawsuits, fifty, it is said, in New 
York alone, still undecided— such as that of Thomp- 
son vs. Collector of Boston, and Griswold vs. Col- 
lector of New York, with business encumbering 



the federal courts, and running up the already too 
great expenses of the federal judiciary, and with 
hosts of demands for refunding duties, the amount 
of which can be seen by glancing at the record and 
estimates of the Register of the Treasury. I see at 
one hasty glance now $439,588 in "repayment of 
duties on sugar and molasses illegally exacted by 
collectors, refunded under a decree of the courts, 
acquiesced in by the Treasury Department; ' and 
these, among other such items, now swell up the 
apparent expenditures of this Government! 

But, say gentlemen on the other side, "if the 
tariff of 1846, or what you now call the tariff of 
1851, yields revenue enough, and is high enough, 
why demand any change in such a tariff? Why 
complain of it?" I have anticipated such a ques- 
tion, and I am prepared to answer it now. 

THE VICE OF THE SY9TEB1. 

The essential, radical, incurable defect of the 
tariffs of 1846 and 1851 is the universal advalorems, 
and the principle of them, that establishes the duty 
to be levied, upon the ever-fluctuating, ever- 
uncertain foreign valuation. It is wrong, radically 
wrong, that foreign nations should, in foreign in- 
voices, make a universal American tariff. And it 
is a wrong that no stiff, stern legislation, no vio- 
lent Treasury circulars, no travelling appraisers, 
can ever cure. The tariff of 1851 has followed the 
foreign invoice down to the place of export, and 
affixed to it there all costs, and charges, and com- 
missions— so far, well; but levying a duty upon a 
Manilla, a London, or a Marseilles invoice, in a 
New York custom house, is, to a great extent, 
collecting American duties upon a foreign tariff, 
in Manilla, London, or Marseilles. It i3 impos- 
sible to inspire confidence in these foreign invoices. 
It is impossible to make an American merchant 
believe that he is doing business on fair and equal 
terms with the London born, the Manilla born, 
and the Marseilles born merchant. It is impossi- 
ble to know for a certainty in New York whether 
or not the invoice is a real bona 'fide invoice, or if 
so, whether or not it may not be under, or above, 
the general, actual, or real value of the goods in 
the country of the export. It is impossible to find 
appraisers that know every country, every pro- 
duction, every process of manufacture, every price 
of every thing, everywhere; and hence there is a 
constant collision between merchant and appraiser, 
between the Treasury Department and the busi- 
ness of the country. To make themselves uni- 
versal geniuses, or to qualify themselves to pre- 
sume to know every thing everywhere, I venture 
to say you will find scarcely an appraiser who does 
not study a foreign price-current more than he 
studies the tariff statutes of his own land; and I am 
sure you will find Wilmer's European Times, with 
its numerous prices-current, (and not always cor- 
rect ones,) hung up in every appraiser's office, 
from the commissioner of the customs here in 
Washington eastward to Eastport, and westward 
to San Francisco. Wilmer's European Times is 
thus practically the American revenue law of the 
land; and the foreigner, who wants to amend the 
American statute to suit him, will resort to amend- 
ing the prices- current sent from Liverpool to New 
York. " Why quit our own, I ask, to stand on 
foreign ground ?" No other nation does so. The 
British revised tariff of 1846, which has so often 
been commended to us for imitation, collects 
only £3S,000 ($182,000) per annum in a gross re- 
ceipt for customs of £22,000,000 ($105,000,000) 
for articles paying ad valorem duties, being less 
than one-fifth of one per cent, of this immense in- 
come from imports ! All Europe pursues a similar 
course. 



14 



The errors or frauds that do arise, and must 
arise, from subjecting' all the productions of the 
earth to universal, horizontal ad valorems, cannot 
be got over or got under, however much the at- 
tempt may be made to avoid the facts that have 
been marshalled in proof of the allegation. The 
Secretary of the Treasury, in his report of Decem- 
ber, 1S50, exhibits irresistibly conclusive proof in 
demonstration of them. He shows that prior to the 
act of March, 1851, in New York and Boston alone, 
the appraisers advanced on the invoices, from Jan., 
1S49, to October 1, 1850, $4,098 in number, thus : 
Whole number of advances in New York. . . .2,359 
Whole number of advances in Boston 1,739 

4,098 
He shows, too, that in an importation of fruit 
(oranges) shipped by the same house, from St. 
Michaels to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, 
at Philadelphia they passed at the invoice value ; 
at New York the appraisers advanced it 75 per 
cent., and at Boston 92 per cent., and no objection 
or appeal was made by the importers. A like ex- 
traordinary pimento case from the Island of Ja- 
maica is set forth. Indeed, I might, with a little 
research, go on and add an indefinite number of 
like cases— but why pAve appraisers are men, and 
that their judgments must vary — and that thus 
there must be a very unequal system of duties in 
the widespread ports of this now vast Republic of 
States? 

But what is more ruinous to the commerce and 
industry of the country than all these vicious 
principles of universal ad valorems, is the ever- 
fluctuatng- basis of these foreign valuations upon 
which our commerce and all our manufacturing 
industry are obliged to stand. As well stand man 
and labor, it seems to me, upon the rolling billows 
of the sea, in some frail barque, without chart or 
rudder, as stand man and labor upon ever fluctu- 
ating foreign valuations in foreign ports. The 
sliding - corn laws of Great Britain have been, 
throughout the world, universally condemned as 
defective in equity and sound principles of political 
economy; but here is a sliding scale of duties in 
our country, based upon no home-made laws, but 
upon foreign invoices, foreign valuations, which, 
as they go up or down in Europe, go up or down 
in America. These sliding scales operate never 
favorably, as the British corn laws did ; that is, 
reduring duties when imports rise in price, but 
just the reverse ; for when exports ri3e in price 
in Liverpool or London, duties rise in rates in 
New York; and the very moment the import 
should be made as cheap as possible to the con- 
sumer, from its rise in price abroad, that very 
moment it is made dearer to the consumer by ad- 
ditional duties at home. No duties at all are better 
protection to labor at home than such ever-fluctu- 
ating, sliding protection; for then labor hopes for 
nothing, expects nothing, risks nothing, invests 
nothing. Iron, for illustration, was, under the 
sufficiently-protective ad valorem prices of the tariff 
of July and August, 1S46, tempted to hope on, to 
expect, to risk more rather than to invest less; but 
as prices went down in England and Wales, these 
tariff duties of 1846 went down lower and lower 
here, until there is danger that the leading iron in- 
terests of the country will be annihilated, and that 
for this great necessary of life we become altoge- 
ther subject to foreign nations — their power, and 
their caprice. If iron ever rises in price abroad 
above the high prices of 1846, the consumer will 
have to pay higher duties under such an ad valorem 
tariff, than he paid under the tariff of 1842; so that 
when this great necessary of life may be mo3t 
needed by the consumer here, to be got at the 
cheapest rate, higher duties at home come in and 



add themselves to higher prices abroad. Our tariff 
aystem now is one of high duties at home on high 
prices abroad, and of low duties at home on low 
prices abroad. The first is ruinous to the consumer; 
the second ruinous to the home producer. 

The tariff of 1S46, carried out by the tariff of 
1851, yields revenue enough, and, in my opinion, 
more than enough. The country, under it, is 
taxed as much as it ought to be, and more too. 
The indictment I bring against the existing tariff 
is, that it discriminates against American interests, 
American industry, American labor, American 
merchants— seldom or never in their behalf. One 
count in that indictment is, that it exacts unneces- 
sary duties upon raw materials coming into com- 
petition with nothing American, and often an 
equal or higher rate of duty on the raw material 
than upon the manufactured article of which it is 
composed. Another count in that indictment is 
the fact that these invariable, universal, horizon- 
tal ad valorems tempt to excessive importations be- 
yond our means to pay, or to great fluctuations. 
When foreign products are low, duties here are low; 
when higher duties would be better for the coun- 
try, and when foreign products are high, duties 
here are high; so that when we least want foreign 
goods, from their excessive abundance, we have 
the most of them; and, when we most want them, 
we have to pay the most for them. The whole sys- 
tem thus becomes vicious from beginning to end — 
vicious not only to industry and labor at home, but 
vicious to commerce, vicious to the currency, vi- 
cious to exchanges, both foreign and domestic, 
and constantly involving individuals in alternate 
speculations and bankruptcies. Under it, we 
Americans are taxing ourselves to carry on our own 
Government a3 the capitalists, and the wages of 
labor in great manufacturing marts, such as Man- 
chester, Birmingham, and Lyons, may dictate. 
The tariff, as a whole, I repeat, is, in the main, 
high enough, and the tariff of 1846, as it was pass- 
ed, under the then existing high ad valorems, was, 
in most articles, (if duties could have been en- 
forced upon honest ad valorems,) well enough; but 
the vicious principle upon which it is based will 
never be acquiesced in by an intelligent, industri- 
ous people. 

REVENUE FROM TEXAS AND THE PACIFIC. 

These are some of the reasons why so many of 
the people of this country demand a revision of 
the existing tariff, a reduction or abolition of du- 
ties upon some articles, and a modification of 
others. But before I can thoroughly answer the 
question, why the existing tariff has yielded so 
much revenue, I must again ask attention to the 
growth, prosperity, and increase of the country 
since 1846. Texas, at that time, was not in a con- 
dition of sufficient security to yield us any reve- 
nue. Indeed, the now chief importing point in it, 
Point Isabel, was then practically, if not theoreti- 
cally, under the Mexican government. The duties 
collected at Point Isabel — 

From July 1, '49, to June 30, '50, were. . $5,509 73 
From July 1, '50, to June 30, 51, were. . 4,321 73 
From July 1, '51, to June 30, 52, were. .100,561 80 

Total $147,393 31 

Thi3 i3 one port in Texas alone, beyond United 
States jurisdiction in 1846— but Texas importations 
are made chiefly in New York or New Orleans; 
and no table, therefore, can be prepared to show 
how much of our revenue Texas pays. 

The whole Pacific coast has been added to us 
since 1846, with the people of New Mexico, and 
others. San Francisco has now become the fourth 



15 



©r fifth importing city in the Union— being equal 
to, if even behind, New Orleans. I have a table 
before me which shows the receipts from customs, 
on account of duties on merchandise, tonnage, 
light-money, and marine-hospital money in Cali- 
fornia and Oregon, to be in all, from November 12, 
1849, to December, 1551, $4,23S,434. The details 
may be interesting: 
San Francisco — 12th November to 31st December, 

1849 $216,452 82 

San Francisco — 12th November to 

31st December, 1S50 1,750,646 56 

San Francisco— 12th November to 

31st December, 1851 2,146,791 55 

$4,113,891 2g 

Sonoma— 10th January to 30th June, 
1851 .„ $12,917 15 

San Joaquin— 25th July, 1851, to 31st 

January, 1S52 231 19 

Sacramento— 7th May to 31st De- 
cember, 1351 1.772 43 



San Diego— 13th January to 30tb of 
September, 1551 9,491 28 

Monte.-ey— 7th March to 30th Sep- 
tember, 1551 6,629 46 

Oregon— 3d April, 1549, to 30th Sep- 
tember, 1S51 93,301 76 

$4,238,434 58 
These are some of the causes which have swollen 
the importations, and consequently the receipts 
from customs, (June 30, 1S51,) up to $49,017,567. 
If they have gone beyond the expectations.of the 
Whigs in 1546, it was because the tariff of 1546 had 
an unlawful substitute found for it in the Treasury 
circulars of Mr. Walker, and because of the great 
and unexpected increase of the country geograph- 
ically. Under all circumstances, as we grow nu- 
merically or geographically, we must buy more 
from abroad, and consume more at home, always 
provided we can have the means for purchase. 








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